2. April 13

22
LENIN MISCELLANY
TELEGRAMS TO THE CENTRAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE SOVIETS OF SIBERIA ON PREPARATION OF DEFENSE AGAINST JAPANESE OCCUPIERS
10079
April 5, 1918

I fully 
approve 
the resolution of Tsentrosibir'. I advise you to prepare stores of foodstuffs and other products, even if by means of requisition, in order to seriously organize defense. Negotiations with the ambassadors should begin on our side today*. It is clear that one cannot now place any faith in assurances, and the only serious guarantee is solid military preparation on our part.

Lenin

Printed from a 
typewritten copy.

23700
U r g e n t . O u t s i d e  a l l  p r i o r i t y . Government
April 13, 1918

In response to your memorandum on the foreign commissariat at Tsentrosibir' and on the independence of Siberia, I consider it necessary to inform you that in the opinion of the Council of People's Commissars there is no necessity whatsoever for a foreign commissariat at Tsentrosibir'; the so-called independence of Siberia will only formally facilitate annexation from the East; you have before you the examples of independent Ukraine and Finland. I propose limiting ourselves to the autonomy of Siberia as an inseparable part of Russia, and settling on the institution of commissars under the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs, from which you will receive directives and in whose name you will act.

Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars
Lenin

Printed from the 
original, written by 
I. V. Stalin and 
signed by V. I. Lenin.

* On April 5 Japan landed a force at Vladivostok. On the same day the Soviet government transmitted a note of protest against the Japanese invasion to the representatives of the Entente.

1917–1918

29241
TELEGRAM TO THE CHAIRMAN OF THE ARKHANGELSK GUBERNIA EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
April 21, 1918

Commissar Tsyurupa presented to me your telegram to him of April 21, in which you call absurd an order of the central Soviet authority.

I hereby officially reprimand you for this and declare that if you do not take back such an inadmissible expression, I will raise the question of bringing you to trial, for if we conscientiously teach discipline to workers and peasants, then we are obliged to begin with ourselves.

Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars
Lenin

ON PEACE NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE UKRAINIAN CENTRAL RADA
23459
TELEGRAM FROM V. I. LENIN AND I. V. STALIN 
TO THE SECRETARY OF THE RUSSIAN PEACE DELEGATION

May 8, 1918

Confirming the authority granted to you by the Russian peace delegation, we prescribe that you conduct negotiations with the Ukrainian hetman government on the cessation of military action on the borders of Ukraine and on the determination of the time and place of peace negotiations.

Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars
Lenin

Chairman of the Russian peace delegation
Stalin

Printed from the 
original, signed by 
V. I. Lenin and 
I. V. Stalin.